Note: The last scene in this chapter was actually the second scene I had thought up for this story, from about "My dead family" on. The first was the prologue.

:) CD

Zeda was a haunted figure to behold, seven days after leaving the deep forest with Petro. Petro understood her pain... partially.

How could she have known, after all?

“Look, they’re both asleep. We can just raid them now, slit their throats, no problem.”

That’s what they think, Zeda thought to herself. Beneath half-closed lids, her eyes rolled contemptuously. Bandits.

She waited until they were close by, then sprang to her feet. Both of the bandits paused, temporarily shocked by the agility of the “sleeping” fighter. One recognized her, and ran. The other closed with the fighter, drawing nicked, slightly rusty curved blades from sheathes on his back.

He was arrogant, and sure he could win against the “weak girl”; even at the moment of his death. Death came too soon for him.

Zeda woke Petro. A few quick, whispered words, and Petro, too, was on his feet, and ready for blood. “Their camp must be nearby.”

Petro smiled.

“Let’s have some fun with a few bandits, Z.”

The brigand that had run was one of the newer recruits. When rumors of a fighter called the Z started, he had had suspicions, but he had seen her now. He knew.

He knew who the Z was, and he knew that he would die this night.

Zeda’s quarry was all too easy to track. Odd though... the attempts to cover his trail reminded her of someone... Zeda shook her head. Coincidence. The only bandits she knew were dead.

The cowardly brigand had run straight to camp. Zeda and Petro took care of sentries. Maybe that would have been enough—kill a few to scare them—if the two hadn’t seen things on the rogues that they recognized.

“Fa—Petronamus’ bracelet,” Petro unclasped it from a corpse’s wrist.

“Father’s pendant,” Zeda whispered, taking it from another’s neck.

They had found the bandits that killed their families.

Despite Zeda’s anger whispering, “Kill them all, now,” her warrior’s honor took over. She shouted, waking them up.

She could not kill someone without giving them a chance to fight.

The two made short work of the twenty-member group, leaving a single survivor.: the bandit that had run. Zeda had him cornered, when a flare of light from the fire showed her his face, as he had seen hers.

No... NO!

“Martin.”

Martin, her brother, the trickster, the one who had left her when he had bagged a rabbit. When she had found a charred corpse in the house, she had assumed it was Marti. She had found her other brothers outside the houses; Luke, Coram, Alan, Mattias...

“They found me, they were going to kill me...” Zeda’s eyes grew cold.

“So you begged for your life, rather than giving it in defense. I thought Father had taught you better.”

Marti winced at the mention of their father Luke. “Zeda... every night, Matti’s been there, talking and talking, with that slash in his chest bleeding and bleeding. He’s been torturing me... my dead twin’s been torturing me...”

“My dead family has been torturing me! Day in, day out, I thought all my family was dead, and you have no idea how many times I’ve drawn Father’s sword, and looked at that point, and refused to kill myself, because I had to avenge my family!”

Zeda was aware of Petro nearby, listening, and didn’t care.

“I was right. All of my family is dead, for no brother of mine would grovel for his life while his family fought.”

Zeda raised the great blade above her head. She could not dredge up any hatred or rage, only sadness and contempt.

She swung the blade down, while the man who had once been her brother wept and groveled before her.

“ZEEEEEE!”

End of Book One